Yesterday was my 5th transplant anniversary - what a fantastic milestone if I do say so myself ;-) These are the lovely flowers Andrew got me. I was at work in the morning, running around telling everyone how important the day was haha! In the afternoon I was giving a talk at the Regional Collaborative Meeting - this is essentially key players in organ donation, ITU and A+E consultants - all the people involved with identification of donors and dealing with donor families in Scotland. I was really there to give them the recipient perspective as they never actually hear what happens to the organs afterwards or meet anyone who has been saved by their good work. It was great being able to give this insight, while also being able to emphasise how grateful transplant recipients are to their donor and families. It put a face to a process that many of the doctors find difficult. I tried to keep things fairly light hearted as well - I noticed they had made an organ donor card cake (to celebrate the increase in donors over past year) so my opening quip was to thank them for baking me an anniversary cake :P
It just seems like yesterday that I had that call.....but looking back now, I have also done so much since then!
Back to work in a permanent post for past 4 years (only few days sick leave and that was 3 yrs ago!) and becoming much more involved with projects at work, knowing that I am going to have the energy to see them through.
Lots of holidays with Andrew - Paris, Berlin, Sorrento, Cyprus, Cape Verde, Nice....to Florida with family and big family holiday to Tuscany, to Copenhagen with my best friend, to London with Victoria and lots of sneaky weekends between. 13 weddings ( and being Maid of Honour for Sarah), several Christenings and becoming a Godmother to Caoimhe.
Countless organ donor desks, talking to schools, to NHS Staff, pulmonary rehab teams, CF teams..and goodness knows who else :P Lots of fundraising - the big Team Jac walk raising over £26,000 for LLTGL and then as Team Glasgow, our posh balls, halloween parties, swap shop - together raising £26, 240 to date for LLTGL, Butterfly Trust, CF trust and Gartnavel CF unit :-)
We somehow managed to build an extension in the middle of it all and redecorate the whole house - madness ;-) Have also met so many lovely people over the past 5 years!
So, yes where did 5 years go? I know exactly where they went! It's great that I have been well enough to do all this and I hold onto how lucky I am every day. Yesterday we were thinking of my donor and her family - and celebrating the gift they gave us all.
It's been an emotionally taxing week - I also gave two talks at George Heriot school earlier in the week. So to be honest, I plan to not talk about organ donation for a little while! I think we will just chill out and enjoy ourselves this weekend :-)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment